Developing A Culture For Sacrificial Giving – Sam Adeyemi

“A man’s life does not consist of the things he possesses..”

John 6:5-9

Jesus prayed when He needed to heal or cast out demons from people; but when it came to meeting material needs, He didn’t only pray, He needed something material, as a point of contact, for resolving physical needs. For example, when He had to feed the crowd of five thousand people, He sought for bread, prayed over it, giving thanks, and fed the crowd.

God expects the same of everybody. There are various needs around us which God expects us to solve because He has endowed us with the capacity to, but we will need more than prayer to resolve physical needs, especially poverty. We need to make ourselves available for God to use, He needs our availability more than He needs our abilities. If God will ever use us to solve the prevalent poverty problem, then we need to break free from selfishness.

Selfishness is characteristic of the sin nature, every human being has to deal with it. If we don’t overcome selfishness, God cannot use us.

Selfishness hinders us from achieving greatness, it ultimately kills a person’s conscience, the person is no longer compassionate. Compassion galvanises us to act, it opens our inner eyes to revelation, innovation and solutions. Jesus was always moved with compassion, and that’s when the power of God flowed.

How, then, do we break free from selfishness? By giving. Give liberally, master your money by giving it away to needy people; it doesn’t matter if you don’t have a lot, just share what you have, and God will reward and multiply your resources. Insufficient money to meet your own basic needs is a lame excuse for not giving.

Finally, beware of covetousness; remember that a man’s life does not consist of the things he possesses. Be content with what you have because it’s God Who gives the increase.

Those who are willing to let go of their possessions to solve problems, for God’s sake, will, in this lifetime, reap a hundredfold reward. You can change your world with the little you have if you let it go!